“There,” Shamshir
Talatra said, pointing to the towers not far away. “That’s where
the ammunition is stored. And there, and there, and there,” he said, pointing
to several places not far away, “are hatches that will allow entry, through
maintenance ducts, into the compound.” He adjusted the macrovisors in his
helmet. “It’s lightly guarded,” he said, noting the forty-some-odd Guardsmen
on duty. “Should be easy to take. A frontal assault to distract them, while
our men get into the hatches—”

“They have many, many
guns,” Mehdi, Sergeant of Rudra Squad 2 replied. Once, years ago, he had
been a Fighting Tiger Scout in the effort to take Auros
IX from the Orks that infested it. Shamshir Talatra had
rescued him from certain death and elevated him to a full Space
Marine. Attrition—and his own abilities—had made him a squad leader in
the army he was founding. Sometimes he doubted himself, but he never doubted
his commander.

“Too many guns,” growled
Zykl, Sergeant of Rudra Squad 1. He had been a Red Corsair—one of several—whom
Shamshir and those Tigers still loyal to him had captured and offered a
choice: serve in the new army, or die. Zykl chose servitude, but sometimes
he forgot himself and spoke when, Mehdi believed, it would be better to
be silent.

“They always have too
many guns,” Shamshir said. He stroked the head of Panja, his saber-toothed
tiger companion. “And ours are running low on rounds, so there’s nothing
to be gained by standing around here. Mount up—Panja and I will follow
you, Zykl—and let’s hit them and go.”

“I hear and obey, Raja,”
Mehdi replied, bowing. He turned and headed back to where his men and their
Rhino waited.

“All right,” Zykl said.
He turned to head for his own men and transport. Shamshir caught his arm.

“No messes,” Shamshir
warned him. “You and your friends were a little too enthusiastic with your
triggers last time. Too many servants—good servants—of the Emperor died.
If they run, let them go. If you don’t have to kill, don’t.”

“I’m a Space Marine,”
Zykl snarled. “Killing is all I know.”

“You’re a Space Marine,”
Shamshir said, “and obeying is what you know.”

Panja growled, deep
in his throat.

“Yes, Raja,” Zykl said.
Under his helmet, he scowled.

Lots of people my age dread their birthday,
but not me. That’s because every year, Kenton and I get together for some
40K brutality. This time, we thought we’d use armies from two of the more
recent codices—Imperial Guard and Chaos Space Marines—at 2250 points each,
like this year’s Grand Tournament.

The Fighting 501st: Imperial Guard (2245
points)by
Patrick EibelIn keeping with the Star Wars
theme that runs across my Imperial Guard and Daemonhunter collections,
my army is named after the Stormtroopers
who serve Darth Vader in the films. Marines of any stripe—Chaos
or Loyalist—are tough nuts to crack, so I brought plenty of armor-nuking
goodness like lascannons, plasma guns, and melta weapons. I also brought
plenty of vehicles, because mobility is the name of the game in 5th Edition.

My plan was to establish a firebase
around one or two objectives (if possible) with the Infantry Platoon and
one Veteran Squad; use the Vendetta to transport the other Veteran Squad
onto another objective; repel assaults with my Command Squads and Ogryns;
and blast Chaos Space Goonies with my tanks and heavy weapons.

From left to right, the
Vet Squad with Sgt Harker, Infantry Platoon Cmd Squad (in the tower), and
the rest of the Platoon

Fearful Symmetry: Chaos Space Marines
(2250 points)by
Kenton KilgoreI haven’t played these
guys in a while, and I’ve made some changes with them, giving them
some Rhinos for mobility and upping their anti-tank capability (useful,
needless to say, against Guard). Still, there was no way I was going to
win a shoot-out against Pat’s guys, so I would need to be cagey and stay
out of harm’s way as much as possible.

My plan was to keep Shamshir and the
Terminators in reserve; move up all three Rudra units in their Rhinos;
summon the Daemons and bring in the Termies; and assault the IG while my
Havocs and Defilers went after Pat’s tanks, crippling his mobility and
firepower.

I swiftly learned that that would
not actually happen, however (more about that later).

Set-Up and Deploymentby Kenton KilgoreWe played at Pat’s house, on a 4'
x 8' table with terrain scattered liberally about. Pat was itching to try
out the Battle Missions book that he had picked up recently, so we agreed
to play “Pillage,” which divides the tables into quarters and has a randomly-determined
amount of objectives to grab. We were on a tight schedule the day we played,
so I told Pat to set up the board, put out the objectives (5 for this game),
pick his deployment zone and set up.

Fighting 501st deployment.
One objective is atop the tower held by the Platoon Command Squad; one
is on the landing pad (that red and white
token); another is by the nose of the crashed lander across from the IG
line

Pat wisely chose the portion with
several fortifications and good lines of sight. “Pillage” mandates that
one deploys one HQ and two Troops and keeps everything else off the board,
so Pat put down the second Company Command Squad (the one with the lascannon);
the Infantry Platoon (with all its lovely, lovely heavy and special weapons);
and the Vet Squad with Sgt Harker and his heavy bolter.

My plan for holding Shamshir back
went totally out the window; nor could I surround him with his Termie bodyguards.
Nevertheless, I set him up at the point of my deployment zone and backed
him with Rudra 1 in their Rhino: with a bit of luck and some running, Shamshir
would be able to reach the IG lines by Turn 2. I sent Rudra 2 (in their
Rhino) off to go grab another objective just outside my deployment zone.

Fearful Symmetry deployment.
Shamshir and Rudra 1's Rhino are right in front of a red-and-white objective
markerin the ruins; Rudra 2's
Rhino is poised to drive to the other objective, on top of the white building
on the left

According to the mission parameters,
the Chaos Marines had the first turn, so off I went.

Turn 1by Kenton KilgoreWith only two Troop units and my
ersatz Chaos Lord on the board, the Movement Phase was pretty simple. Unless
you play Tau or Eldar, you’re not going to win a shootout with Imperial
Guard, so I moved Rudra Squad 1’s Rhino up 12", towards the right flank
of the enemy line, and had the Marines inside disembark. Along the way,
my guys moved right past one objective in my deployment zone, leaving it
for Squad 3, currently in reserves, to take and hold it on their arrival.

Shamshir Talatra followed after on
foot, running in the Shooting Phase to cover ground and hopefully get out
of line of sight of Pat’s guns. Meanwhile, Squad 2’s Rhino rolled up behind
another objective and got out, staying behind scenery to avoid getting
shot at. My plan was that on Turn 5, when the end of the game was nigh,
they would move onto the objective, out into the open, weather a turn or
two of fire from Pat, and hold it.

In the Shooting Phase, Squad 1 unloaded
on Gunnery Sergeant Harker and his Veterans, killing GSH and seven other
dudes. The remaining two guys broke and ran. First blood goes to the Fearful
Symmetry!

En flambe!
Squad Rudra 1 uses their flamer, followed by some double-tapping bolter
action, to soften up the Vets

Pat immediately swiveled a whole
bunch of dakka my way. He successfully Ordered his fleeing Vets to Get
Back in the Fight, and commanded the two closest Infantry Squads to
Fire
First and Second Ranks. Everything else also opened up in the general
direction of Squad 1 and Shamshir.

The lascannon team whiffed craptacularly,
rolling three “1’s;” the suddenly-reinvigorated Vets were out of range;
a plasma gunner in an Infantry Squad fried himself; the Platoon Command
Squad’s autocannon did skadoosh against Shamshir; and a missile launcher
lived up to its name—“miss”—when fired at my Main Man Shami. Nevertheless,
Pat still had enough go-juice to kill five guys from Squad 1 and pasted
Shamshir with a lascannon: my “Run” roll had only been a “2,” not enough
to get my pseudo-Chaos Lord out of line of sight or close enough to Squad
1 to avoid being a target. Though Squad 1 made their break check, I was
suddenly faced with the prospect of 5 guys taking on all of Pat’s army.
Ulp.

Not to worry, I told myself,
with
some good Reserve rolls, I’ll summon some Daemons and start kicking ass
up and down the IG lines. Guess how that went….

Turn 2Pat has this thing he does when
he’s pleased with himself: he grins just as wide as he can, like some kind
of prematurely-graying jack-o-lantern in glasses, and then he gleefully
describes to me how awesomely clever he is, how woefully hosed I am, or
both. I don’t recall if he actually did this when I was making my Reserve
rolls on this turn, but if he didn’t, he really should have.

Why he should have been so happy
was because he had an Officer of the Fleet, forcing me to subtract 1 from
all my Reserve rolls. So instead of the hoped-for Daemons arriving to save
Squad 1’s bacon, or even some big guns (my Havocs and Defilers) showing
up to siphon off some heat, all I got was Squad 3 in their Rhino. Yippee!

Trying to squeeze lemonade out of
the lemons I had so far, Squad 1 moved up, intending to charge one of Pat’s
Infantry Squads. Squad 2 held their position. Squad 3, in their Rhino,
moved towards the objective Squad 1 had bypassed. I maneuvered Squad 1’s
Rhino around and shot dead both of the last Veterans, keeping their flamer
and melta-gun from causing any trouble.

Led by the villainous Sgt
Zykl, Rudra 1 attacks. That white tiger figure counts as the squad's Icon
of Chaos Glory

Rudra Squad 1 charged the Infantry
Squad, killing five of them and losing one of their own: even in close
combat against IG stooges, I was still getting whapped with the Bad-Luck
Stick. The Guardsmen broke and ran (which, actually, was NOT AT ALL what
I wanted to have happen) and my guys caught them and wiped them out. I
rolled a “1” (of COURSE) on my consolidation roll, so instead of my guys
jumping into the nearby cover to weather the inevitable [poop]storm of
fire about to come their way, they stood around like stripy statuary.

In Pat’s Movement Phase, he showed
me what Reserve rolls should look like: coming onto the board this turn
were a squad of Ogryns, mounted in a Chimera; the Devil Dog; and the other
Veteran squad, inside the freaking Vendetta. Rapture. Pat Ordered
more Guardsmen to Fire Ranks, but failed to get a squad to Move!
Move! Move! towards another objective, atop a landing pad on the other
side of the board.

The Fighting 501st call
in some air support

The shooty-shoot part of the show
began with the Vendetta missing Squad 1 with a shot from its lascannons.
No matter. The lascannon team killed two Symmetricals, and though another
of Pat’s plaz gunners Shake-n-Baked himself, fire from the Infantry Squads
and the dismounted Ogryns killed everyone but the Aspiring Champion, who
failed his Morale Check with a “12” (no more Icon of Chaos Glory for a
re-roll, thanks to the Icon Bearer getting perished under the Torrent of
Fire rules) and fell back 11". Right about then, I was wondering
if I could be excused to go home….

Turn 3Rolling for Reserves, both packs
of Daemons arrived, appearing near Rudra Squad 2—and thus, heinously out
of position, nowhere near the IG lines. Squad Agni, my Havocs, also came
on, as did one of my Defilers.

Originally, I had intended for Rudra
Squads 2 and 3 to hold objectives while the Daemons spindled, bent, folded,
and mutilated the IG, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen. Changing
roles, the Daemons would run onto both objectives while Squad 2 saddled
up in their Rhino and Squad 3’s Rhino rolled forward—or, should I say,
attempted to roll forward, seeing as how it immobilized itself on some
unavoidable difficult terrain. Sigh. This bad luck streak I was
having was *really* honking me off.

Rakshasas (those green fellows)
appear, as do the Havocs (behind the hill) and Bronze Tyger 1. Rudra 3's
Rhino(that white tank) jams itself
on the hill and Sergeant Zykl, the lone survivor of Rudra 1, continues
to fall back

In the Shooting Phase, as the Daemons
scampered into position and Rhino 3 repaired itself (huzzah for little
victories!), the Bronze Tyger, my version of a Defiler, fired its twin
lascannons into the Vendetta, knocking off its nose-mounted twin lascannons.
Nice, but I would preferred something a bit more…I don’t know… “boomy.”

On Pat’s turn, his other Company
Command Squad and Chimera (say that three times fast), came on, as did
his Leman Russ Exterminator and his Hellhound. The Ogryns got back in their
ride, and Pat’s Infantry Squad that had started moving across the board
was out of range of Orders to Move It, Move It, so they just kept
going. Pat successfully Ordered his lascannon heavy-weapon team to Bring
Down the Bronze Tyger, and they succeeded in immobilizing it.

Just because they can, Pat's
tanks go for a drive in search of more stripy tail to kick

Just for something to do, the Hellhound’s
hull-mounted heavy bolter (“Holy alliteration, Batman!”) gunned down the
Aspiring Champion from Squad 1, who had still been falling back. The Vendetta
played tit-for-tat with the Bronze Tyger, knocking out its lascannons.
The Exterminator fired on Rakshasa Pack 1, but the plentiful 4+ cover saves
they were afforded saved them all. The rest of Pat’s fire from various
sources was ineffectual.

Turn 4Still rolling for reserves, still
not getting the Chaos Terminators to come on the board: where ARE those
mu-tards? Fortunately, Bronze Tyger 2, the other Defiler, arrived and its
lascannons shook the Hellhound. Squad Agni, my ersatz Havocs, fired on
the Vendetta and took it down, pinning the Veterans inside. The immobilized
Bronze Tyger 1 piled on by firing its Havoc launchers at the Vets, killing
two of them. At that point, I may have done my best impersonation of the
Kool-Aid Man
and shouted, “Oh YEAAAH!”, but the video evidence is inconclusive.

Meanwhile, the Daemons hugged their
objectives and Rhino 3 rolled forward towards another one, out in the open:
to try to take it would mean exposing my guys to lots of heinous fire,
but as I was crawling frantically to get back into the game, I really didn’t
have much choice, now did I?

Pat’s Demolisher came on at the beginning
of his turn, and Infantry Squad Green continued moving towards the objective
on the landing pad. Pat started to shift his tanks towards the objectives
that my Daemons held. His lascannon team was ordered to Bring Down
Bronze Tyger 1, but cover saves came through. The Platoon Command’s autocannon
took out the twin lascannons on the newly-arrived Bronze Tyger 2; the Exterminator
did all of zero kills against a Daemon pack; and the Devil Dog managed
to immobilize and knock the bolter off Rhino 1, which was empty. The Ogryns
plodded towards the other Daemon pack, firing their ripper guns and killing
two.

Turn 5My Terminators finally came on,
but only because the rules say they automatically arrive: otherwise, those
assclowns might still be back at the base, playing Farmville
on Facebook. They teleported right onto the objective on the landing pad,
in range of the pinned Vets and the Green Infantry Squad (who must surely
have soiled their shorts at that point). Rhino 3 pulled up the objective
in the open, a spot I had decided to call “Death
Valley,” and Rudra 3 got out to take it. I really, really needed
the game to end on this turn…

Rudra 3 dismounts near an
objective that only fools, madmen, or desperate losers would try to take

…but until then, Rhino 2 drove up
behind Pat’s Devil Dog and Rudra Squad 2 dismounted, shooting it in the
rear: shaken + melta cannon destroyed = All Good to me. The Bronze Tygers
fired their havoc launchers on the Platoon Command Squad, killing four
(and silencing the autocannon), but not taking out the Commander. Speaking
of Havocs, they fired their lascannons and autocannon at the Demolisher,
but the latter had no chance against the Demo’s front armor, and the former’s
shots bounced off (as well as a laser beam bounces, anyway). The Termies
unloaded their heavy flamer and bolters on the pinned Vets, killing six
of them: the last two began to fall back. Rudra 3 ran towards their objective.

Rudra 2 puts some serious
hurting on the Devil Dogs while the Rakshasas charge the Ogryns

Firmly believing that the best defense
is a good offense, I moved one Daemon pack forward and the Rakshasas charged
the Ogryns, killing one of them (T 5 and 3 Wounds each is no joke!). The
Ogryns whiffed on their return attacks (no kills), fumbled their Morale
roll, tried to fall back, and were caught and destroyed. Pat was NOT happy
about that. I pulled the Rakshasas back to the objective and waited for
him to take Cruel Revenge.

Pat's other Company Command,
led by a Commander with a power fist and including a Priest and some Bodyguards

Pat’s other Company Command got out
of their Chimera, not far from the Daemons that had just hacked down the
Ogryns (and hacked off Pat). The two fleeing Vets were Ordered to Get
Back in the Fight. Infantry heavy weapons fired on the Terminators,
doing bup and kiss. The Exterminator unloaded its seemingly
4,018 shots against Rudra Squad 1, who managed to only lose one (poseur)
Chaos Marine. The Command Squad’s Chimera fired its heavy flamer on the
same guys and the Ogryn’s ride fired its multi-laser, combining to kill
two more. Green Squad stopped to fire their heavy bolter at Rudra 3, to
no effect.

Pat brings his forces to
bear on Squad Rudra 3. The squad's Rhino is protected by its smoke launchers

The Hellhound fired on the Ogryn-killing
Daemons, sending three of them back to the Warp. The melta gunners of the
Command Squad fired on Rudra 3’s Rhino, but its smoke launchers (deployed
on my turn) saved it. Foregoing an easy shot on Rudra 3, Pat had the Demolisher
fire on the Terminators, but they were out of range of its Pie Plate of
Death cannon.

Whew! Now all I needed was for the
game to end. Pat’s Loyal Green Die ™ (his favorite die, which, ironically,
used to belong to me), however, had other ideas, and the game continued.

Turn 6Calling “Yoohoo! Remember us?”
the Terminators fired on the Green Squad, killing six of them. Bronze Tyger
2’s havoc launchers took out the Platoon Commander, knocking him off one
of Pat’s objectives. Rudra 3 moved to hug whatever cover there was as I
prayed that Pat’s fire would fail him. Rudra 3's Rhino drove onto the objective
to block some lines of sight to the squad.

Ah, so THERE are the Terminators--the
lazy jerk-offs

Ordered to Fire on My Target,
the lascannon team and another infantry squad took down one Termie. The
Ogryns’ Chimera fired on them as well, but came up with nada. The Hellhound
moved closer and gave Rakshasa Pack 1 another flame bath, killing six this
time. The Command Squad moved up and shot dead another Daemon, and the
Exterminator switched targets and took down another Daemon, too.

The Demolisher fired on Rudra 3 (I
*knew* that was coming) but missed by 7" (my guys dodged something a lot
larger than a bullet there). The Command Squad’s Chimera gave them some
burny love, to the tune of three guys killed, and the rallying Vets shot
another out of his stripy boots, but my guys held!

Squad Rudra 3 hunkers down;
the objective is under their Rhino

The Company Command charged the Rakshasas,
killing two Daemons but losing the Priest (and his eviscerator) and the
Astropath (who bore a certain resemblance to a cackling,
cowled character from several very popular sci-fi films…). The
Company Commander evidently forgot to charge up his power fist, because
he rolled two “1’s” to wound, and the combat was drawn.

The Loyal Green Die ™ said that the
game was over, and when we counted up, the Fearful Symmetry had two objectives
(one held by the mostly-ignored Rakshasa Pack 2, one held by Rudra Squad
3), two were contested (Rakshasa Pack 1 and the Command Squad; Green Squad
and the Terminators); and one was held by Pat’s Infantry Platoon (I had
been mistaken in thinking that by killing the Platoon Command, the objective
was no longer held). Somehow, someway, despite all the hard hits my guys
had taken, they had prevailed….

Post-Game Analysisby Patrick Eibel

"There's no such things as coulda,
shoulda, or woulda. If you shoulda and coulda, you woulda done it."--former Miami
Heat coach Pat
Riley

There are three distinct phases to
a game of 40K, and failure in any one could spell disaster. The first phase
is army selection. For this game, I had put together a solid list with
plenty of anti-tank capability, plenty of scoring units to hold objectives,
plenty of mobility, and some solid close combat units for a Guard army.

The second phase is deployment. I
had a solid fire base that gave excellent cover and clear fire lanes. I
had taken the Officer of the Fleet, which would give me superior numbers
as reserves came on. There were three objectives within easy reach of my
deployment zone, and all I had to do was to secure and hold those three
objectives to win.

Unfortunately, I failed at the third
phase – the actual play of the game. While I had made a solid plan in my
head, I failed to execute it by sending my reserves to my right flank to
try and address the two objectives that I did not care about.

Epic. Fail.

One way to console one's
self after a loss is to make funny faces and post them online

And why did this happen? Although
I was not fully conscious of what I was doing, I got a little too pleased
with myself (as Kenton noted) and took my focus off the objective. The
game of 40K does not forgive hubristic tactical errors, and I paid dearly
for mine. By diverting my reserves to the right, I had nothing that could
deal with the Terminators when they planted themselves on an objective
(not that they could claim it, but neither could I while they were there.)

Even more frustrating was that I
failed to dislodge the squad of less-than-good-Marines that was sitting
on the objective right in front of my lines because I lacked the firepower
to do so. Really? Imperial Guard not being able to shoot something
to death? Gah!!!

Still, there is no better way to
spend a birthday than drinking beer and playing 40K with your best friend
(at least that we will admit to on this website), so I have to thank Kenton
for humoring me. These two armies are slowly building up a little history,
which I look forward to developing in future games. Now, back to Kenton.

One of the Fighting 501st's
Company Command Squads, with creepy-looking Astropath (that hooded guy
on the right)

Post-Game Analysisby Kenton KilgoreI wish I had some Profound Wisdom
(or even just a pithy quote) that I could impart to you, Gentle Visitors,
but I do not. I should have lost this game, and lost it very badly. The
set-up that mandated that Shamshir start on the board did me no favors,
and I had some bad luck, but what really kicked my stripy butt was Pat’s
awesome army list. How do you beat a Devil Dog, a Hellhound, an Exterminator,
a Demolisher, AND a Vendetta? Answer: you don’t—you just take the
punishment they dish out and try to hang on. Which is what I did.

I also improvised fairly well, something
I normally am not very good at. I had meant for the Space Marine squads
to hold objectives while the Daemons beat up on Guardsmen, but the Rakshasas’s
late arrival (well, later than I would have liked, anyway) and lack of
mobility made me switch their roles, for the most part. And at the beginning
of the game, I had sworn off the “Death Valley” objective, recognizing
it for the fools’ errand it was. It was only desperation that made me send
Squad 3 to take it, and only a poor decision on Pat’s part (firing the
Demolisher at the out-of-range Terminators instead of Squad 3) and a bad
dice roll the next round that let me keep it and win the game.

So there’s no gloating, no exultation
in victory, just relief that I didn’t get embarrassed, and some small satisfaction
at having actually won. Like Pat, I enjoyed having an excuse to get together,
hang out, and indulge in some adult beverages. Happy birthday, old fruit:
let’s do this again next year, shall we?

Midway through Turn 3, when
things were not looking so good for the visiting team Stripycats